Category Archives: Uncategorized

Upcoming events, online courses &c

Lots of stuff to tell you today! First up, my Writers HQ Coventry retreat this Saturday still has a few spots left.  I‘m not running the June date and there’s no August retreat. Applications are now open for my @writementor mentoring and editing online course. I’m doing a panel at Waterstones Nottingham next week. I’ll beContinue reading “Upcoming events, online courses &c”

My next book – The Starlight Watchmaker!

Surprise! I have a SECOND BOOK coming out this year! The Starlight Watchmaker is a novella about a lonely android watchmaker at an alien academy, and the pompous Duke who drags him out of his attic workshop. It’s coming out in paperback in July with Barrington Stoke, and it’s designed to be really readable forContinue reading “My next book – The Starlight Watchmaker!”

Day course at University of Cambridge

Popping in for a quick announcement! I’m going to be teaching a day course at University of Cambridge this November called ‘Write the one percent: creating diverse, inclusive fiction’. More info here.  If you work in a UK state school you can get a 50% bursary on the tuition fee! During the course of thisContinue reading “Day course at University of Cambridge”

Science representation in YA

The Quiet at the End of the World features two characters who study STEM, just like my other books (I have a niche, and it is intensely nerdy characters). This time, Lowrie, the protagonist, is an engineer and her best friend-slash-lifelong-crush Shen studies evolutionary biology. They are also both archaeologists, but they would never call themselvesContinue reading “Science representation in YA”

Sensitivity readers in traditional publishing

You might have seen that this week a black author pulled his book due to backlash over representation, only a month after an Asian author did the same. I don’t usually comment on twitter discussions like this, but I think this is a worrying trend that has wide implications for the US YA publishing industry.Continue reading “Sensitivity readers in traditional publishing”

Where I got the idea for The Quiet at the End of the World

Exactly two years ago, in March 2016, I posted a quote on Instagram from a book I was reading, which is not something I usually do. “We are a short-lived genus of species. All our cousins are already extinct. We are perhaps the only species on Earth to be conscious of the inevitability of ourContinue reading “Where I got the idea for The Quiet at the End of the World”